


Birds in the sky you know how I feel

by richmahogany



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1708766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold has met someone special, and for the first time in his life he is well and truly in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds in the sky you know how I feel

**Author's Note:**

> Pure feel-good fluff. I wrote this very quickly yesterday, basically to cheer myself up. Actually, I had the title first - the song I took it from was playing on the radio - and then came up with the story to go with it.

Slowly, slowly Harold was drifting up from his sleep into wakefulness. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, and for the moment he kept his eyes closed, enjoying the sensation of the warm bed and the random thoughts that floated through his mind. He felt good. He felt happy. Everything was alright with the world.

 Wait – what?

Things weren’t usually alright with the world for Harold. The world was a cold, cruel, frightening place which had all manner of things wrong with it. Which is why Harold normally kept the world at bay and himself pretty much out of it. But today was different. It wasn’t just this bed that was warm. He felt warm on the inside as well, yes, warm and fuzzy even. He rolled onto his back, not opening his eyes yet. As he came closer to full consciousness, he remembered what it was that made him so happy.

Yesterday he had been on his third date with Grace. They had dinner in a small Italian restaurant, the kind of family-run place that serves traditional, home-cooked food, nothing fancy but tasting all the better for it. It had red and white tablecloths, large wooden salt and pepper mills and photos of ruined temples and amphitheaters on the walls. It couldn’t have been more clichéd if a mandolin-player had materialised next to their table, crooning “O sole mio”. Grace loved it. And the food really was delicious. They had talked about Italy as well, continuing a conversation from a previous date. They ranged over art, films, the various landscapes of Italy, in paintings and in real life, and the more they talked, the more they discovered how much they liked the same things.

At the end of the evening he had taken her home and walked her to her front door. And there, on her doorstep, she had kissed him for the first time. Truth be told, it was only a peck on the cheek, but to Harold it felt like a spark of electricity coursing through him. He could see in her eyes that she had felt it, too.

The alarm finally came on. He sat up, switched it off and got out of bed. Still in his pajamas he made his way into the kitchen for the first cup of tea of the day. The sun was just coming up behind the trees, which were stretching their bare branches into the sky. It was probably very cold out there, but it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. When he had drained his cup, Harold changed into his running gear and left the house.

It was as if the weather gods had known his mood and sent him a day to match. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the rising sun bathed everything in a golden glow. Harold was running the same route as almost every morning, but today it seemed brand-new to him. The trees – how black they looked against the morning sky. The sun, which was now a pale yellow color. The shades of blue in the sky, each band minutely different from the next. The little birds hopping along the path, then fluttering into the bushes as he approached. He had seen it all before, but today his mind was so filled with Grace that he saw everything with new eyes. He wondered how she would paint the sun and the sky, how she would see the colors and the shapes of the trees, how she would notice the first bold green shoots coming through the frosted soil, and how she would laugh at the little birds, who returned to their business on the path as soon as he was past. He also wondered what it would be like to share all this with her. He had never been one to share experiences, and not just because there never had been anyone to share them with. It would have meant opening himself up to another person, which was something he was very reluctant to do. But when he was with Grace, he was more open than he had ever been. He hadn’t told her his real name, of course, or anything about the work he did, or even where he lived. But when he told her how he felt about this painting or that, about his likes and dislikes, about all the things he found he had in common with her, he told the absolute truth. They had only been on three dates, but already he felt about her like he had never felt about anyone else. It was like she was a part of him that he hadn’t even known he was missing.

Harold looked at his watch and slowed down to a walk. There were a few people in the park now, running or walking their dogs. He decided to go for another half circuit before going home. Even running felt better today than it had before. As he sped up again his thoughts returned to Grace.

Where would they go from here? They had been on three dates. So far they hadn’t arranged a fourth, but they had talked about a few things they wanted to do together, so that was only a matter of time. He knew they were both people who took these things slowly, who didn’t rush headlong into a relationship but felt their way forward more cautiously. But in his mind there was no doubt how he felt about her – he was in love.

It wasn’t like he had never been infatuated with a girl before, but it had never come to anything, and the feeling had soon fizzled out. He hadn’t thought about love or relationships for a long time, until Grace came into his life. And suddenly he wanted this to work out more than anything else. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, wanting to be with her. But did she want to be with him? Her eyes last night had said yes. But he couldn’t be sure yet. He would have to work on it, and he would have to take great care to nurture this relationship from the small bud it was at the moment until it blossomed into something more substantial. Now that he had found her, he was determined never to let her go.

When Harold arrived back at his house, he showered, had some breakfast and went to work, still floating on a little cloud of happiness.

They had been working almost silently for a few hours, when Nathan suddenly said: “What’s up with you, Harold?” Harold turned round and looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been watching you. You have smiled more today than you usually do in a month. So what happened?”

Harold shrugged. “Nothing.” He turned back and continued to tap on his keyboard.

But he didn’t stop smiling.


End file.
